Benedict Cumberbatch Promises He Isn’t Playing Khan. It’s John Harrison.

In a recent interview Sherlock star and new Star Trek villain, Benedict Cumberbatch said, “I play a character called John and not that other name. It’s interesting. Speculation is speculation and that’s all fun.”

Hey, remember that time when Marion Cotillard told everybody she 100% was not playing Talia al Ghul in The Dark Knight Rises and an original character named Miranda Tate? It seems Benedict Cumberbatch, J.J. Abrams, and the team working on Star Trek Into Darkness remember.

While speaking to Access Hollywood, Cumberbatch said, “I play John Harrison who’s a terrorist and an extraordinary character in his own right,” Totally not just Khan, right? Cumberbatch went on to say, “He’s somebody who is not your two-dimensional cookie cutter villain. He’s got an extraordinary purpose, and I hope that at one point or other in the film you might even sympathize with the reasons he’s doing what he’s doing — not necessarily the means and the destruction he causes. But it was a great ride, not just because he’s the bad guy and the antagonist but also because he has a purpose and it’s hard not to see his point of view at certain points.”

As far as my research shows, John Harrison was never a name of a Star Trek villain. He definitely was a self-educated English carpenter in the 1700s or a Canadian politician in the 1900s, but not a Trek villain. But, then again, Nero was created just for the original 2009 film, so maybe Cumberbatch is on the up and up.

But I doubt it. Totally, Khan.

Star Trek Into Darkness is currently in post-preduction and warps into theatres May 17, 2013.